Here’s a story I haven’t told because I didn’t think it was something that would be helpful. When I was in Pittsburgh for the Netroots Nation conference, I shared an elevator with Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY), who is now resigning in a very colorful way (or, maybe not) after having caused a bit of a scene at a wedding on New Year’s Eve. According to his telling, he and his staff were fairly drunk near the end of the night and one of his staffers suggested to him that he might hook up with one of the bridesmaids. He responded by grabbing one of his male staffers and saying that what he really ought to be doing is [having sex with] him. Then he tussled his hair and retired for the evening. Seems bawdy, but fairly innocent, and frankly I don’t care.
In any case, I first became concerned about Rep. Eric Massa’s political savvy on that elevator in Pittsburgh. It was during the August recess, and Massa has just endured some pretty raucous tea partying at his town hall meetings. Even though I clearly had a press pass hanging around my neck, he decided to go off on his own district, telling me that it was “the most right-wing fucking district in the entire country.” I knew I had a news story, because it’s never a good idea to bad mouth the people you represent, especially while using profanity. But I didn’t want to hurt Massa so I didn’t write anything about it.
Instead, I just made a mental note that he was not a very smart politician and figured it was unlikely that he would be reelected. Now, today, he is espousing a conspiracy theory that Rahm Emanual and the House Democratic leadership are forcing him to resign so that the threshold for passing health care reform will drop from 217 to 216. He has some especially choice words for Emanuel.
“When I voted against the cap and trade bill, the phone rang and it was the chief of staff to the president of the United States of America, Rahm Emanuel, and he started swearing at me in terms and words that I hadn’t heard since that crossing the line ceremony on the USS New Jersey in 1983,” Massa said. “And I gave it right back to him, in terms and words that I know are physically impossible.”
“If Rahm Emanuel wants to come after me, maybe he ought to hold himself to the same standards I’m holding myself to and he should resign,” Massa said.
And he’s threatening not to resign just so he can kill the effort to pass health care reform.
[Massa] suggested on a New York radio station Sunday that he could rescind his resignation — scheduled to take effect at 5 p.m. Monday — after asserting that an ethics investigation into allegations that he sexually harassed one of his aides may have been orchestrated by Democratic leaders to get him out of office before the health care vote.
Responding to a caller to his weekly radio show on WKPQ Power 105 FM, a recording of which was made available via the Web site of local station 13 WHAM-TV, Massa said: “I’m not going to be a Congressman as of 5 o’clock [Monday] afternoon. The only way to stop that is for me to rescind my resignation. That’s the only way to stop it. And the only way that’s going to happen is if this becomes a national story.”
If I am not mistaken, Massa has been opposing the health care reforms because he favors a single-payer system. I don’t know how sincere he is in that because he does represent the most conservative district in New York State, and his ‘no’ vote might just be a way of giving himself some cover. I had hoped, when I first heard that he might resign, that we would feel free to vote for the reforms now that he wasn’t seeking reelection. But, apparently, he now wants to stick around to kill reform provided that everyone will pay attention to him for a couple of days.
I understand that Rep. Massa has some health problems, and he initially explained his decision to resign as a result of discovering that his cancer is no longer in remission. I do not know if that is true, but I wish him good health. As to his character? I’m not impressed.
